Call for artists: Huevos Rancheros Quinceañera
San Anto Cultural Arts Has been mentoring teens and putting up murals on the Westside since 1993. With now 44 huge artworks in place, their Community Mural Pubic Art Program is one of the largest long- running mural projects in the U.S. SACA also publishes El Placazo Community Newspaper, manages a video oral history…
Pick of the Day: Metal Mondays with Beyond Deaths Reach & Medusin
Fronted by vocalist Felix Astorga, local thrash/melodic/death-metal quintet Beyond Deaths Reach cites Here Comes The Kraken, The Faceless, and Amon Amarth among its influences. On Monday, BDR teams up with heavy experimental trio Medusin for Keep San Antonio Metal’s weekly Metal Mondays party at Nightrocker. Hosted by pro wrestler/burlesque entertainer Miss Maulie, the night kicks…
San Antonio’s Creative Economy and SA2020
Last week, I attended the Creative Economy Luncheon, hosted by the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the City of San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs. Held at Pearl Stable, the luncheon was an unveiling of the 2011 Growth and Prosperity report by Dr. Steve Nivin, Chief Economist for the SABÉR Institute. Except for…
Pick of the Day: 9 to 5: The Musical
Even though she didn’t write it, Dolly Parton’s defiant 1967 hit “Dumb Blonde” has followed her from Smoky Mountain poverty to global fame. In 1980’s 9 to 5, Parton aced her first movie role and challenged the dumb blonde stereotype as quick-witted secretary Doralee Rhodes. Nearly three decades after the girl-powered comedy gave The Empire…
Pick of the Day: Old 97’s Too Far To Care 15th Anniversary
It’s been almost two decades since Rhett Miller and Murry Hammond started Old 97’s, combining the Replacements’ ne’er-do-well insouciance, country-rock twang, and the hook-laden power-pop pulse of Big Star. After a couple of releases, the band enjoyed a three-album major label tenure that was followed by Miller’s stab at a solo career, two mediocre albums,…
Blame it on telenovelas: Award-winning ‘Hermano’ opens in SA
Hot-tempered, impulsive Julio (Eliú Armas) loves his younger adopted brother Daniel (Fernando Moreno), who was found in a trash dump as a baby and is his exact opposite: vulnerable, sweet, and responsible. They love each other and are a lethal combination when they play for the same team, but fierce competitors when they play one-on-ones.…
San Antonio Pets Alive! Back to School Adoption event this weekend
San Antonio Pet’s Alive! (SAPA) has saved (sheltered, spayed, neutered, vaccinated, medically treated, microchipped, fostered, and adopted out) over 4000 cats and dogs since they opened their doors in January 2012. But the number of stray and surrendered dogs, puppies, cats and kittens coming into Animal Control Services facilities is increasing daily at an…
Good art fast: poster contest for Eastside music fest
Area artists who want to give the Eastside a little love, and get a chance at winning $1,000 are asked to enter their poster design for the 2012 SAGE Music Festival. Deadline is next Monday, August 27.The inaugural SAGE Music Festival is a one day, family-friendly music event held at the new Wheatley Heights Sports…
Pick of the Day: 8
American Foundation for Equal Rights founding member Dustin Lance Black (a San Antonio native who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the 2008 film Milk) based his play 8 on interviews, trial transcripts, and first-hand observations of the courtroom drama surrounding Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown): the landmark federal trial of California’s Proposition 8.…
Filmmaker Peter Hedges, actor Joel Edgerton on ‘The Odd Life of Timothy Green’
(From left) Director/writer Peter Hedges and actor Joel Edgerton’s new film is “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.” In the new fantasy family film The Odd Life of Timothy Green, married couple Jim and Cindy Green (Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner), who are unable to have kids, are surprised when a little boy magically appears…
Animal Care Services: Kathy Davis replaces Joe Angelo at the helm
By Andrew Oxford There were fond farewells and a few grumbles Wednesday night for Joe Angelo, the outgoing interim director of Animal Care Services. Flanked by Kathy Davis, who took over the agency Monday, Angelo put in a final appearance at the ACS Advisory Board meeting. The agenda was lighter than usual — abbreviated for…
Pick of the Day: August: Osage County
If you’ve always thought your family was the world’s most dysfunctional, a trip to August: Osage County is just what the doctor ordered. Penned by Oklahoma-born playwright/actor Tracy Letts, the ultra-dark Pulitzer- and Tony-winning comedy nods to tragic Camille via Violet Weston — a bitter pill-popping matriarch with cancer and a missing husband. With her entire…
Nonprofit Boards: What Are They and Why YOU Should Get on One!
Few people know nonprofit organizations like my guest blogger Francesca Rattray. Francesca has spent most of her adult life in the nonprofit world as a fundraiser, trainer, and consultant. She studied Asian Studies at Georgetown University and has an MBA from Boston University’s School of Management. In the following post she offers good advice about…
SA cast and crew needed for ‘Devil Deal Blues,’ shooting in October
You have to be very square or uptight to dismiss Devil Deal Blues as yet another take on the never-proven “deal with the Devil” Robert Johnson made before becoming arguably the most influential bluesman ever. In fact, the Robert Brink-directed short, which begins shooting in San Antonio in October, is a free “re-imagining” of Johnson’s…
Pick of the Day: Aladdin: Dual-Language Edition
Since its insertion into the collection One Thousand and One Nights (aka Arabian Nights) circa 1710 at the hands of translator Antoine Galland, the story of “Aladdin” has piqued young imaginations in an array of incarnations. Thanks in no small part to a score by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice,…
More notes on RYSO at 502
Mexicans with Guns is hot: the project headed by Ernest Gonzales has just released a remix of Lorenzo Vektor’s "Occupy" and is scheduled to play with Toy Selectah in Chicago on August 18 … Henry + The Invisibles (Henry Roland), who will close the night at 502, will be releasing a new single every few…
Frank Zappa: 'You Are What You Is'
Was that really Frank Zappa’s face last week on the front page of the iTunes store? I couldn’t believe my eyes. After the Beatles (who are now, finally, available on iTunes) and the still-missing AC/DC (which hates it when people buy songs instead of albums), Zappa was arguably the most notorious figure absent from the…
Los Lobos' 'Kiko': The making of a Chicano masterpiece
"It was a life-changing experience as a songwriter," Los Lobos’ multi-instrumentalist/co-songwriter Louie Pérez told the Current about the making of Kiko (1992), the band’s career-defining album. "Something happened." What happened, actually, began to take shape five years earlier. In Luis Valdez’s acclaimed La Bamba, Los Lobos’ version of the title song (a 1958 Ritchie Valens…
Killer Joe strikes like an unapologetic Texas rattlesnake
If a film like 2011’s sexually explicit British drama Shame taught us anything, it’s that being slapped with a dreaded NC-17 rating these days doesn’t always ensure a death sentence. Sure, its box-office numbers will be affected by those close-minded theater chains refusing to screen movies considered too provocative because of the MPAA label, but…
Monsters in the making: ‘Face Off’ and 'Fatal Honeymoon'
Face Off (8pm Tue, Syfy) In its third season, this delightful reality competition features a fresh batch of special-effects makeup artists, all determined to make a mark in Hollywood. These artisans are obsessed with aliens and monsters, and we get to watch them work wonders with glue, foam, and clay. “I really know how to…
AtticRep's 'Virginia Woolf' is side-splitting and soul-searching
Families fare badly in Western drama. Oedipus kills his father, Lear’s daughters connive against one another, and Ibsen’s Nora walks out on her husband and their three young children. But in 1962, Edward Albee introduced a fresh horror — beyond patricide, sibling rivalry, and desertion — into the family romance: nastiness. Early in his most…
Council watch
Money-changers beware. A proposed ordinance cracking down on predatory lending cleared Council’s Governance Committee last week, meaning a full Council could take up the measure as soon as the end of this month. Championed by downtown Councilman Diego Bernal, the ordinance would cap payday loans at 20 percent the borrower’s gross monthly income, while limiting…
Texas Republican Party is the real 'extremist' in the climate fight
Hot? Dumb question. Unless you work in an ice factory, movie theater, or chilly data center, you know you are. Last month was the warmest July in the continental U.S. on the record books, capping the warmest 12-month period the U.S. has experienced since 1895 when record keeping began. Despite being engaged in a relatively…
¡ASK A MEXICAN!
Dear Mexican: I was in a taco shop in the bathroom stall and saw your racist dribble in La Prensa San Diego (the paper was being used as ass wipe I guess). Whatever you say or write will always be foreshadowed by the fact that you and all the dark-skinned Mexis are mosca en la…
Bourdain's F-bombs over San Antonio
Anthony Bourdain, TV personality, cheflebrity, lover of profanity, is coming to San Antonio. His North American tour — Guts & Glory: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain — is making a stop in San Antonio on November 8 at Trinity University’s Laurie Auditorium. Bourdain will be sharing stories about traveling and food, but given Bourdain’s penchant…
Critics of Animal Care Services say our drive to humane care misses the big picture
In 2006, the City Council took on Mayor Phil Hardberger’s challenge to become the country’s largest "no-kill" community. At the time, ACS was gassing 50,000 animals a year and the population of stray dogs and cats was burgeoning. The live release rate — the percentage of animals picked up by San Antonio Animal Control Services…
Matthew McConaughey dressed more likely to impress
It might be a tired subject, but there’s a running joke in Hollywood that actor Matthew McConaughey is allergic to shirts. Most people think the Texas-born hunk has never made a movie where he doesn’t bare his chest in at least a couple of scenes. It’s not true, of course, which is why we wanted…
Local band to watch: Sugar Skulls
Jeff Escamilla was the only sober person at a party a couple of years ago, and Alyson Alonzo was about to pass out when she heard something. While everyone else crashed out on the floor, Escamilla had gone to a bedroom and started playing guitar for himself. For Alonzo, that guitar was like a magnet.…
From neglect to colony member: cat companionship in several halting steps
Don’t feed the stray cats!" they told me. Who? Everyone, it seemed — neighbors, acquaintances, the mail man. They’re feral, an infestation. If you feed them, you’re just adding to the problem. But when the small tabby crossed into my yard again to nurse her new kittens, I discovered that what had been a litter…
Newsmonger: Residents oppose Newell Recycling move, Push and pull over Bexar County Jail
Residents oppose Newell Recycling move A smelly, metal-shredding neighbor may complicate ongoing plans to revive the iconic Lone Star Brewery to its former glory. Newell Recycling has been operating in Southtown since the 1950s, taking in tons of copper, brass, batteries, aluminum, junked cars, and bulky household appliances every year for shredding. Kicking Newell out…
Mixtura feat. Tito Nieves: "I Want You Back" (from Unity: The Latin Tribute to Michael Jackson, release TBA)
The first single off the upcoming Michael Jackson salsa tribute is out — and it kills. Nuyorican Tito Nieves is at his soulful best in this stirring Tony Succar-produced, piano-guitar-horns-Latin percussion-based tribute that starts in funky English and becomes an all-Spanish straight-ahead salsa midway. Keep ’em coming, Tony. ★★★ ½ (out of 5 stars)
Actor Thomas Haden Church can't blame much on squirm-worthy Killer Joe
Academy Award-nominated actor Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) doesn’t think violence in films should be held responsible for violent things that happen in real life. “That’s like saying it’s unhealthy for children to fantasize about unicorns because there’s no such thing as unicorns,” Church, 52, told the Current last week during an interview to promote his…
Local band to watch: Last Nighters
A remarkably cohesive whole with parts born in disparate locales, Last Nighters is a San Antonio band with a far more fully realized sound that you’d expect from a group that just released their debut album. Boasting a rousing and never wasteful or overdone album — Animal Room, released this summer and reviewed here —…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Do you know what a controlled burn is? Firefighters start small, manageable fires on purpose so as to eradicate brush that has accumulated too close to wooded areas. With less fuel around, bigger fires are not as likely to ignite accidentally and turn into conflagrations. I encourage you to use this…
Boneshakers uproots and joins the beer revival of the Hays Street Bridge
After calling the Southside bank of the San Antonio River home for almost two years, Boneshakers is now shaking things up east of downtown after relocating to the Dignowity Hill Historic District. Formerly down the road from the Mission San José, the beer and bicycle hub currently finds itself adjacent to another historical landmark, the…
Taste this: Seared Scallop Salad, $15
With the recent arrival of Chef de Cuisine Charles Clark (formerly of Restaurant Gwendolyn) and Sous Chef Chris Cullum (of Cullum’s Attaboy), the food at Blue Star Brewing Company has grown up and graduated. Amplified basics like the Blue Star Grass Fed Burger ($10) share the new menu with approachable French staples, fish and chips,…
Los Lobos’ Louie Pérez on ‘Kiko’: The Current Q & A
Pérez (first from left) and Los Lobos in 2012 (photo by Drew Reynolds) With the August 21 20th anniversary edition of Los Lobos’ masterpiece, Kiko (1992), the East L.A. band celebrates two decades of an album that defined them as a band. The celebration includes the simultaneous release of Kiko Live (recorded at a concert…
Pick of the Day: Champagne Champagne
It may not go down as easy as its namesake bubbly, but the strange brew served by Seattle’s Champagne Champagne intoxicates nonetheless. Using hip-hop and synth-pop as a platform for experimentation, the trio (MCs Pearl Dragon and Sir Thomas Gray and DJ Gajamagic) rejects standard genre classification but offers up descriptors that range from the…
